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Not pumping enough!

I currently work full-time and pump 2-3 times a day to feed my 4 month old baby. I typically produce between 8-12 oz a day, but my baby is drinking much more than that from bottles. On the weekends when I am with her all day and am able to breastfeed, I never run out of milk for her, so I know I am producing enough.

I have a feeling that the pump just doesn't do as good of a job as she does at emptying my breasts, or maybe her various caretakers (our family and close friends) are too quick to offer her the bottle. Is there a way to maximize what I am pumping?

Re: Not pumping enough!

Originally Posted by @llli*jaystee

I currently work full-time and pump 2-3 times a day to feed my 4 month old baby. I typically produce between 8-12 oz a day, but my baby is drinking much more than that from bottles. On the weekends when I am with her all day and am able to breastfeed, I never run out of milk for her, so I know I am producing enough.

I have a feeling that the pump just doesn't do as good of a job as she does at emptying my breasts, or maybe her various caretakers (our family and close friends) are too quick to offer her the bottle. Is there a way to maximize what I am pumping?

Yes, it is actually really normal for pumps not to do as good a job at extracting milk, many moms find they need to add more pumping sessions during the day as well as using massage/breast compressions and other tricks to extract milk and keep supply up while pumping.http://forums.llli.org/showthread.ph...n-When-Pumping

As to The bottles, Make sure the family knows/understands AND USES Paced bottle feeding (offering the bottle is not the problem, pouring the whole thing into baby without lots of pauses to let baby decide when they have had enough, or making baby always finish the bottle, or tossing out the left over and not offering it for the next feeding can be a problem.) It is easy to "over feed" a baby with a bottle AND it is HARD for mom to keep up with pumping even under good conditions so if baby is being overfed because caregivers are not using paced bottle feeding then it can spell difficulty for mom and sometimes even be very harmful to the whole breastfeeding relationship. (Baby learns to like just lying back and letting the milk pour in and doesn't want to work at breastfeeding.)

Last edited by @llli*tclynx; August 10th, 2014 at 11:58 AM.
Reason: added link